Ilunga
by McChanged
Summary: Or: fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me three times and I'm punching you in the throat. A story in three parts. / Finn understands the satisfaction that comes with splitting his knuckles open on the mouth of his best friend.


I wish I could finish something. I actuall sort of dreamed the next part, which while terrifying and probably means I should get a therapist, also makes the idea of starting this much easier. Like with CoS, this started platonic, spiraled into bromantic, and ended sort of slashy. Which is part of the reason why I shouldn't be alllowed to write anything, because I can't seem to keep anything on the path I started it on. Review because it makes me smile, and _maybe_ then this won't be my last update of 2010.

Oh,_ Ilunga_ is a Bantu word meaning 'a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.' Probably. But I liked it because there is no other word like it in English. Which is crazy considering we made 'to google' a verb.

* * *

Finn spends the first two months that Puck's gone telling himself that it doesn't matter.

Because Rachel, with her ambitions and her stars and her never-ending tirades, well she is the one he's supposed to be with, the one he fought to be with; that should be enough.

It's not even close, though, because Puck, with his fucking pride and his self-assured smirk, well he's the _Bert_ to Finn's _Ernie_ and isn't that the most fucked up analogy he's ever thought of while stone-cold sober.

-0-

Puck doesn't tell him about the letters, the phone calls, or the reason why he's talking to scouts a little more west than Finn's, until it's much too late. (Because despite the attention span and impulse control problems his best friend wears like a second skin, he's a hell of a defensive man and loyal to a fault.)

So on a Friday in December of their senior year, Finn Hudson punches Noah Puckerman for the fourth time since their friendship started in second grade. It's in the parking lot after school, and it's not pouring like in the movies, but there is a dusting of snow that falls from Puck's shoulder and onto the ground when he stumbles back.

And at first it's _relief_ that tightens the muscles in his stomach, because even though violence has always been Puck's area of expertise, Finn understands the complete _satisfaction _that comes with splitting his knuckles open on the mouth of his best friend.

But, suddenly there's this gut-wrenching feeling, like there's no turning back after this, from the moment Puck's mouth fills with enough blood that he has to splatter it onto the sidewalk.

His best friend wipes the corner of his mouth with the palm of his hand, looks him in the eye, and lies so easily it's startling. The falsehood curls like smoke for the half second it takes to fill his mouth, and then it's gone. The breeze from Puck turning on his heel dissipating it as easily as it appeared.

(_New York is your future, Finn, not mine. We both know you don't need me.)_

Mike tells him three days later when Puck signs the papers, and Finn's left with nothing but blinding regret and the ghost-like feeling of fingers tracing the curve of his shoulder.

-0-

There's a bracelet on Puck's right wrist that Finn bought him in fifth grade. It was a stupid, black, fake leather band he picked up at a kiosk in the middle of the mall for three dollars, that he only bought for Christmas to get back at Puck for the barbie card he got him on Finn's birthday.

And when he gives it to him, in a box with a red bow he stuck on top at the last minute, Finn expects Puck to punch him in the shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise and shove the bracelet to the back of his desk drawer.

Instead, Puck _does_ punch him in the shoulder, but then he slips it onto his wrist without a word.

(Seven years later, and Puck still has it on when whispers lies in the snow during their senior year, and there's still a barbie card in the back of Finn's closet under a pile of hoodies.)

-0-

They don't speak much after that day when the snow and Puck's blood and Finn's heart mixed together on the sidewalk to form something a little more than tragic. So Finn immerses himself in his quickly dissolving relationship with a tiny brunette, and watches Puck thread his fingers through every sluty Cheerio's hair he can touch.

There's no flinch; no crack, not immediately at least. Just a slight tear, like finding a misplaced string on your favorite shirt and tugging at it until a few centimeters unravel. It takes weeks for the rest to come apart, and of course it's at the most inappropriate time.

Because realizing that the fact that Puck will be anywhere _not_ near him, with a scholarship despite being on a team with the worst record this side of the Mississippi, causes his lungs to contract painfully in a way that forces his knees to buckle is terrifying enough, but having it happen while his hand is halfway up Rachel Berry's shirt makes him a little dizzy.

Except he's Finn Hudson, the perpetual knight in shining armor, so when she stills beneath him, he takes a useless breath and drops his mouth to her collarbone.

-0-

Finn spends the first two months that Puck's gone telling himself that it doesn't matter.

And then, in the middle of a tired, repeated monologue about the thematic differences between the plays that she'll reveal to him when he gets to New York, Finn interrupts Rachel Berry to tell her that he's going to detour to Illinois.

And then he hangs up before she can even catch her breath to respond, because he's already wavering on this decision, his hand clenching painfully around the phone, and she has made a_ career _of convicting him of his sins.

It's his fault that his best friend hasn't talked to him in months, because he could see through Puck's bullshit since fourth grade, and still allowed him getting away with leaving like that. He'll be damned if he lets it go on any farther.


End file.
